Baidu controls 91pc of mobile search market in China as smaller firms struggle to compete with nation's top 3 internet giants: Barclays

A new survey of smartphone users in China has found the domestic market for mobile apps is dominated by the country’s three biggest internet companies - Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu - with smaller players struggling for share.

According to Barclays, top search engine Baidu, e-commerce king Alibaba and games and social titan Tencent “lead mobile penetration rates in their respective industry segments”.

Baidu had 91 per cent of the mobile search market, Alibaba’s Taobao owned 69 per cent in the e-commerce field and Tencent’s WeChat mobile messaging and networking app owned 88 per cent of its market.

The Barclays survey was of around 150 smartphone users in Shenzhen. The company notes that "the results may not adequately represent the mobile user base and could have some bias towards high-end users." On a number of points, the findings followed those of similar research carried out by iResearch and Analysys. Users could select more than one app. 

A measure of the most frequently used apps showed how WeChat has replaced previously dominant Sina Weibo as the most popular social networking tool for Chinese smartphone users, with 87.9 per cent saying it was one of their three most-used apps, compared to 29.3 per cent for the micro-blogging service.